1 year ago
57
The war around Bakhmut looks different than it did six months ago, or even just a few weeks ago. The human wave attacks are gone. So are the heavy artillery barrages concentrating on a single area from multiple directions. What’s happening in the area now seems to be what has happened in many other places along the front for the last several months—small unit actions, often involving less than a platoon of infantry, supported by one or two armored vehicles, possibly a tank, trying to move up and take a line of trees, or displace an equally small number of Russian troops from a trench that may have already changed hands more than once.
On Friday, Ukraine continued to make some small advances in the north of Bakhmut. To the south, movement in either direction seems to have stopped for the moment, with Ukrainian forces digging in along the canal and Russians reinforcing positions around Klishchiivka—presumably including those defensive positions on the hill immediately west of the town.
What’s not happening is what everyone assumed would be the aftermath of Bakhmut being occupied when fighting began there nine months ago: Russia has not moved to the west. It has not forced Ukraine to take up defensive positions along higher ground. It has not gained a single meter in terms of the strategic targets at Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
It’s quite possible to argue that now that Ukraine isn’t getting pounded in those few remaining blocks of Bakhmut, things are actually better.
